


Is This What Friends Do?

by S0RRYN0TS0RRY



Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 20:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21185333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S0RRYN0TS0RRY/pseuds/S0RRYN0TS0RRY
Summary: Travis doesn't do friends. But he apparently has them? And he doesn't know what that technically entails.





	Is This What Friends Do?

Death is not new to Travis. He's seen people die, he's survived the death of the natural order of things (or God, depending on who you ask), and now he's even seen un-death. Literal hundreds of years of existence makes death a commonality, a known friend. And Travis doesn't do friends. When you don't age or die and just fight for the next day, you find the passage of time boring. You find things that pass with time boring. People age. People die. The sun rises again. Time goes on. Travis doesn't do friends.  
  
Well, except maybe Gable. Not that they'd say the two of them are friends, but having anyone be a constant in your unending existence tends to push you towards each other. Then Travis agreed to get on this ship called The Uhuru with Gable. And then the island happened. And then three people knew Travis in ways he hadn't allowed anyone to for decades. They struggled and suffered and survived together, and apparently those shared experiences made the four of them friends. Not that Travis would ever admit it.  
  
On The Civility, Travis witnessed so much sacrifice. Wendel losing his arm. Gable almost throwing their life away, if they even can. Jonnit bearing a silenced pain to sabotage the cannons. Travis remained impassive. Dying for a purpose may be heroic to some, but to Travis it is as familiar as the sporadic seasons. So many stupidly die for things like honor, pride, and money. Travis would never be so foolish. His continued existence is worth more than any of those temporary things. They pass as time does.  
  
Apparently, not everyone thinks that way.  
  
Dref's actions in that room were nothing but surprising from start to finish. Silencing Travis, standing up to Tiberius (his brother), and then fighting all of them? Travis didn't know Dref has that kind of spark in him. He fought without restraint; he pushed through some very obvious strain and exhaustion and a bullet to his gut and kept fighting. Ultimately, Dref did something Travis doesn't think he himself could do and sacrificed himself for the safety of his friend. Travis knew the word, friend, and supposed it applied to whatever the four of them were, but he never thought about what that meant, what that kind of connection could be. Someone being there listen to your problems and who would understand you without judgement. Someone caring for your wellbeing and comforting you during the minutes of pure agony you experience every night and morning.   
  
Someone giving their life for yours.  
  
Travis definitely placed his life at high value, but it did not occur to him that others might value it too. It wasn't until he saw Dref's corpse, and time seemed to stop, that he realised that there were others he valued too.  
  
Old habits were safer. Focusing on the small transgressions against his own person allowed Travis to ignore the sorrow and rage that flowed through him. A sharp tongue helped salve his broken heart. Travis has lived through the tragedy of death so many times, he's old hat at it. Gable knows how to handle themselves as they've existed for longer than Travis can fathom. But Jonnit is so young. It is practically impossible to live in Spéir without knowing loss of one kind or another, but Jonnit is so young and hasn't had the time to learn how to wade through it. Travis saw him sinking into dangerous waters and couldn't let that happen.   
  
"Don't blame yourself." Jonnit wasnt there. There was nothing he could have done.   
  
Travis was there. There was nothing he could have done.  
  
Travis can only hope that his old friend Death was kind to the man who had devoted his life to them. That in his passing, Dref found the truths he was searching for, that it wasn't painful for him.  
  
And that he is now a ghost because he didn't believe in them and that would be really funny.


End file.
